ReactOS Forum

This issue keeps cropping up, with people suggesting/pushing for the inclusion of some file system or another. First and foremost, all I have to say is, stop worrying about this. NTFS is on the roadmap, ext2 is being worked on (I think) and by extension that'll eventually evolve to ext4. It will get there when it gets there. So people who are pushing for those two, stop worrying.

For people who are pushing other file systems, you need to realize something here. The kernel is extremely incomplete. Even if we had a fully functional FS driver, there's no guarantee it would work. We have a FAT32 driver because we need something in order to write things on, and FAT32 is probably one of the simpler file systems. The ext2 driver is because one of the devs or someone was interested enough to create it.

Right now, the devs are focusing on getting things to work and stabilizing them at the OS level. If you want a driver for this or that FS, you'll have to write it yourself. The developers just do not have the resources to fulfill FS requests. Suggesting a FS won't really do anything for that reason.

Edit: People keep pointing to NTFS-3G and keep pestering us about it. First of all, this is a Linux driver. Second of all, this is a user space driver. Third of all, it's still relatively incomplete. It's got the basics done, but none of the tricky stuff. Those three factors means right now it's useless to us. At best, it would serve as a reference for when we do work on our own NTFS driver. At worst, it's useless to us.

Can I ask for support for WinNT IFS to be considered?

IMHO, OpenSource File System Drivers for the NT platform are not really the place of ReactOS... where as support for existing IFS drivers, recognisers etc is.

Just a thought.

I think the file system implementation is being done on top of an IFS implementation, don't know for sure if, but, ReactOS is supposed to be NT compatible (yes) then it will be.

The React OS developers may not have to work on non windows file system drivers.

http://www.crossmeta.com/crossmeta.html

I ran across that while googling for something.

They are GPL version 2 and claim to support EXT2, XFS and Reiserfs.

I don't recall seeing this link in any of the posts I read about including file system drivers but if it was then "My bad".


Edit: Sorry looks like they want you to have their product installed to use the drivers. However they are GPL so they still should be usable.

Just to revive this 3ad:

FSDEXT2 : Second extended file system for Windows 95

About fsdext2 wrote: My current hobby project is a port of the second extended file system (ext2fs) to Windows 95; albeit a read-only version.
Using FSDEXT2 you can transparrently mount your Linux ext2fs partitions on Windows 95.

• Latest stable version is 0.16 , see the readme, history and the faq first
• Optionally, you could try version 0.17 , which has some new features, including an unmount option. However, it does not handle removable media (floppies, cd-roms, zip drives etc) correctly. If you insert such a new media while fsdext2 is active, then you won't be able to use that new media after a new reboot. Nothing bad happened, it just won't get recognised by Win95.
• version 0.17a and 0.17b caused me a lot of trouble, so I don't make them public anymore!
• Latest source is available as well (after unzip -d, read src.txt first)
• Please note that from version 0.17, FSDEXT2 is copyrighted and licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Hope that helps !

(btw, the author - Peter van Sebille, should be contacted, IMHO)

8)

We have an ext2 driver in trunk.

you have talked about ext2 and ext4.. but what about ext3?

Ext3 is mostly Ext2 with journalling.

I know.
my question is if Ros ext2 driver will support journaling as well

well, i keep the idea ReactOS should be installable on any existing filesystem format!

nitrofurano wrote:well, i keep the idea ReactOS should be installable on any existing filesystem format!

It will be, one day. The key part of this thread is:

Why ROS will not work on NTFS/ZFS/Reiser4/whatever right now

No thread necromancy please.

Uh, this is a sticky thread.

Still, please let it rest in peace.

Hello to everybody...
First I would like to congratulate you... you have committed yourself to a HUGE job.
Regarding file systems… you know… we are impatient. I also would like to suggest a FS to consider for future releases: exFAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT).
Unfortunately, I do not have too much information about this FS but from what I read is a kind of FAT64. This solves the problem of bigger HDD and other limitations FAT32 has.

Have some good & pleasant years of development,
AnDy